w, by Jove!
And what's your name?" says he.

"Wilson," says I. "They call me Curly for short."

"Curly?" says he. "That sounds sort of like a cowboy's name, don't it?"

"I never seen a cow camp yet where there wasn't some cowpuncher name
Curly," says I.

"Cowpuncher! You wasn't ever one yourself, was you?" says he.

"I never was nothing else," says I.

Then he held out his hand.

"Shake!" says he. "Some folks gets what other folks wishes. Ain't it the
truth?"

"What do you mean?" I ast him.

"Well," says he, "I always wanted to be a cowboy, yet I never did have a
chance to go on a ranch."

"You're the gardener, ain't you?" says I, and he nods.

"That's all I get to do. Still, I may have a chance to do better
sometime."

He was a right nice-looking fellow, clean shaved and his hair cut good,
and his mustache cut right short. He looks down at his clothes now, but
he didn't seem to care--acted like he had plenty more; and he laughed.
He was wet, but he wasn't shivering. He come pretty near drowning but he
wasn't scared. I rather liked him even if he was only a hired man like
myself. He seemed sort of hardy.

"You know how she got me?" he ast me now. "She threw the loop of a rope
over me, and if I hadn't got it in my hand I reckon she'd of choked me
to death."

"She's a good roper," says I, "and she can ride as well as she can
rope."

"Could you ever show me how to rope?" says he. "Would you?"

"Shore I'll show you sometime if we ever get a chance," says I. "I'll
look round in our ranch room there in the house, and see if I can find a
rope."

"Have you got a room in there like a ranch?" says he.

"Exacty like our old ranch," says I. "It's the main room out of the old
Circle Arrow Ranch."

"Could she, now--would she help teach a fellow how to rope a drowning
person?" says he. "That's what she done. She's a corker, ain't she?"

"She shore is," says I. "Her own folks mostly reserves the right to say
that, though."

"I beg pardon," says he, and he got red again. "I know where I belong."

"Just kind of keep on knowing where you belong and where she belongs,
son," says I--"it's two different propositions. I trust, my good man,"
says I to him, "that you understand I'm the foreman of the ranch."

"Don't it beat the world," says he to me after a while--us standing
there still talking though he was wet as a rat--"how things is run?
Sometimes it seems like we can't help ourselfs, and we all get into the